Should the Defenders and Secret Defenders be considered the same team?

The original Defenders were a loose knit team of heroes that worked together to stop many mystical/world conquery sort of threats. The membership had several core members like Dr. Strange, Namor, Nighthawk, Hulk, Valkyrie and Hellcat with several other guest star members. In the later 40 issues the team was almost exclusively Beast, Angel, Iceman, Gargoyle, and Valkyrie.

Whereas the Secret Defenders had no base of operation and was simply a strike force chosen on a case by case basis.

I've always though of them as two seperate entities.

Does the Secret Defenders deserve to be seperate?

I have Secret Defenders #1 :D. Not the best comic... I think they should be considered the same.

In my opinion, I don't think the Secret Defenders really deserves it's own page. Like you said, it wasn't a set group. Just whoever Dr. Strange felt would work on whatever crazy mission he faced. As I recall, the comic was okay and didn't last too long. It seems like it was just a 90s thing to guest star a bunch of popular characters in one book.